Property owners in Hong Kong have submitted 62,000 objections to the government during this financial year about the assessment of their new rateable values, the Commissioner of Rating and Valuation, Lo Hing-chung, said.
Only 4,570 of the objections, or more than 7 per cent, resulted in a drop in the rateable value. The average reduction was about 11 per cent.
Each year, on average, more than 50,000 objections are lodged with the government, with about 10 per cent of the cases having their assessments lowered.
Rates are levied quarterly and assessed at 5 per cent of a property's estimated annual rental value.
'The rateable values of about 85 per cent of properties are valued with the assistance of computers, with the remaining 15 per cent, mainly commercial properties such as shops, assessed manually,' Mr Lo said.
The Rating and Valuation Department needs to assess the rateable values of roughly 2.2 million properties within four months each year - a tough challenge - he said.